Why tea?
Why tea? I could start with a breakdown of tea’s health benefits: the polyphenols that act as powerful antioxidants, L-theanine, which promotes mental clarity and balances the effect of caffeine, tannins that can support digestion. Truth be told, tea has some absolutely amazing health benefits and it is wonderful modern science is able to shed some light on the chemical aspects of this miraculous leaf that can support the health of our physical body.
But stopping there would be like trying to describe beautiful music just by its decibel level. Tea has SO MUCH MORE to offer.
Long before modern chemistry, tea has been cherished by many cultures as a powerful medicine for body AND soul. With its ancient origins in Southeast Asia (Northern Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand, Laos, Southwest China, Northeast India), it has spread across Asia and even to other continents. Nowadays, tea is not only grown in the countries best known for it (China, Japan, India…), but also in Africa, South America, and lots of lesser known tea places like Georgia, Iran, the Azores and many others. The history of tea’s global rise is not always a peaceful one - it includes colonial exploitation, fraud and even wars. But looking at it from a positive angle, tea has such a rich cultural heritage that books could be filled telling all the stories that make up what it can offer the world: A pathway to reconnect with nature and a doorway to our innermost core.
The art of preparing tea and the art of meditation are intimately connected and find expression in beautiful rituals, of which the Japanese tea ceremony or Chinese Gong Fu Cha are only the most well known (and best marketed). Countless traditions and rituals surround the tea leaf, of which many don’t even have a name, but many of them have one thing in common: They honour the gift of tea in deep gratitude as a pathway into stillness, which can open the doors to meditation.
Rediscovering stillness
Trying to find our way out of our buzzing minds, we often equate stillness with the absence of noise and even movement. Brewing tea with absolute focus and clear intention to slow down is a wonderful tool to give this kind of calm more room in our life. And from there, we might start to notice something magical: True stillness doesn’t mean stagnation. It’s in stillness where all human dreams arise, where our creativity and passion awakens and where we find true alignment with the bigger picture of our existence.
From precision to presence
My perspective as a person having grown up in Central Europe might be limited, but what I continuously observe is that things only seem to have value when they can be measured in some way. The way tea is usually brewed is a good example: Take 5g of tea (exactly!), heat water to 80°C (precisely!) and steep for 3 minutes (not a second less!). While this is not meant to be a criticism if you love to drink your tea this way (as long as you enjoy it, it’s beautiful!), but there is something that we lose in this process: The connection to our inner wisdom, the art of feeling our way through things and trusting our intuition. If we practice to be fully present, no tea will ever taste the same twice. Because the tea (given we choose wisely) is as much alive as we are and today we are not the same as yesterday or the day before.
Ceremony without rules – your own tea story
The word ceremony comes from Latin ceremonia , meaning a “sacred rite, religious observance or reverent act”. Many ceremonies follow a certain structure and often very clear rules. But what makes an act a true ceremony is not the robotic repetition of some script, but the reverence it is done with. Brewing tea as a little ritual without timer, thermometer or scale can be a wonderful way to practice exactly this: performing certain actions with absolute involvement, reverence, and gratitude. Doing this regularly you might notice all that reverence and gratitude infusing not only your tea moments but your very life. That way you can write your own tea story and after a while, you might smile in quiet wonder at the question “Why tea?”.
Don't want to miss any future articles? Sign up for our newsletter here zum Newsletter an!